Self-drivingCars
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Uber, Google, Facebook: Your experiments have gone too far
It was 2014, around the time when Travis Kalanick referred to Uber as his chick-magnet "Boober" in a GQ article, that I'd realized congestion in San Francisco had gone insane. Before there was Uber, getting across town took about ten minutes by car and there was nowhere to park, ever. With Boober in play, there was parking in places there never were spaces, but the streets were so jammed with empty, one-person "gig economy" cars circling, sitting in bus zones, mowing down bicyclists whilst fussing with their phones, still endlessly going nowhere, alone, that walking across the city was faster.
Comma.ai's driver assist system is a robot chauffeur for the rest of us
Autonomous vehicle technology is just starting to go mainstream, which means, for the most part, it's still only available to those who can afford a Tesla with Autopilot or a Cadillac with SuperCruise. Both of those cars start at around 60 to 70 grand by the way. So where's the digital chauffeur for the rest of us? Enter Comma.ai.
Senators investigate safety procedures for autonomous cars
Just a day after the NTSB released its preliminary findings on the Uber crash in Arizona, senators Edward J. Markey and Richard Blumenthal began an investigation into safety protocols for driverless car testing. In a letter sent to major auto manufacturers involved in autonomous driving systems, the senators asked several specific questions to find out what kind of procedures the companies have to ensure the safety of others during testing.
Uber’s transparency is key to making self-driving cars safer
Yesterday evening, a self-driving Uber vehicle in Tempe, Arizona, struck a woman at a crosswalk. She would later die in the hospital as a result of the accident. Even though there was a human safety driver behind the wheel, the car is said to have been in autonomous mode at the time. The incident is widely described as the first known pedestrian death caused by an autonomous vehicle.
Uber considers Waymo partnership following lawsuit
Now that Waymo's long-running lawsuit against Uber is finally settled, the two companies are free to cozy up to a possible partnership. According to a report at The Information, Uber executives, led by new CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, have been looking for a way to get Uber riders into Waymo's autonomous cars.
Fully driverless car tests in California could start in April
Automakers testing their self-driving cars on California roads might be able to go fully autonomous as soon as April, according to the state's DMV. Instead of putting someone behind the wheel to take over in certain circumstances, such as when the self-driving system isn't working as well as it should, the companies will be required to link their cars to remote operators. Those remote drivers' job is to keep an eye on multiple cars and to take over their controls if and when needed.
A US freeway may get self-driving car lanes thanks to Foxconn
Wisconsin highway planners are studying the possibility of placing driverless vehicle lanes on I-94 to serve Foxconn's mega factory in Racine County. The Taiwanese company -- supplier to tech firms including Apple, Microsoft, and Nintendo -- reportedly made the suggestion at a meeting with regional officials, according to USA Today's Journal Sentinel.
GM may bring its self-driving Cruise program to Uber
Remember how GM's autonomous vehicles division Cruise was planning to work with Lyft? The two companies hoped to put 300 more self-driving Chevy Bolts on the road next year. The fleet was supposed to start testing within the next year, and GM was already testing a ride-hailing system in San Francisco just for employees. Unfortunately, the thrill is gone between the two companies, according to a report by The Information, which says that GM is now meeting with Uber to launch those self-driving cars by next year.
A car-tracking dongle could make self-driving systems better
George Hotz is intrigued by artificial intelligence. The man who hacked the iPhone and PlayStation 3 as a kid, has moved on to self driving cars with his company Comma AI because of the autonomous vehicle technology's reliance on machine learning. After an initial hiccup that involved the company cancelling a device that would make cars semi-autonomous (because of a run in with regulators), Comma AI is back The new $88 Panda OBD II dongle, like most universal car interfaces, plugs into your car (1996 or newer) and gathers data.
Korea is building a 'city' for self-driving cars
South Korea will soon open an 88 acre facility with everything an autonomous car might encounter, including expressways, parking areas and bus-only lanes, according to the Korea Business Times. First announced last year, it will be the world's largest, dwarfing Michigan's 32-acre Mcity facility that it's reportedly based on. The idea is to let companies test self-driving tech in a repeatable way, without the hard-to-get permits normally required to test vehicles on Korea's public roads.
US establishes a federal committee on automation
Someday, self-driving vehicles could rule the roads, what with several tech titans, ride-hailing companies and automakers developing their own. To prepare for the era of autonomous vehicles, the United States' transportation department has established a federal committee on automation. The committee, comprised of industry experts, will work in the development and deployment of not just autonomous cars, but also trains, buses, planes and even drones or unmanned aerial vehicles. They'll help shape policy and regulations, determine what areas need more research and prepare for autonomous vehicles' infrastructure needs.
Self-driving cars involved minor accidents, but don't blame the tech
Since California began issuing permits for self-driving car tests on public roads last fall, four out of nearly 50 vehicles had minor accidents. According to an Associated Press report, three of the four were Google's Lexus SUVs outfitted with Delphi's autonomous technology. The fourth was a test vehicle owned by Delphi. In half of the fender benders, the cars were in control when the accident occurred, and all of them happened at speeds of under 10 MPH. Most importantly, all four cases resulted in minor damage and no injuries. Due to the state's privacy laws, the report doesn't indicate any further details -- like if they happened while backing out of a parking space, for example.
Google reportedly working on its own car, considering autonomous taxi service
It's no secret that Google has been slowly but surely finding its way into the automotive industry, as it's already been working with manufacturers to build self-driving cars for quite some time. However, according to Amir Efrati, a former star reporter for the Wall Street Journal, the software giant is looking to drive a few extra miles down that road by designing and building cars of its own. The company has been in talks with component suppliers like Continental AG and Magna International in the hopes that it could put together an entire car under Google's command. The idea, Efrati says, is to put more pressure on car brands to develop autonomous driving tech, regardless of if Google is directly involved or not. So what would Google do with such a vehicle built under its direct supervision and brand? One idea on the drawing board is a "robo-taxi" service, which is exactly how it sounds: a self-driving car would come and pick you up and drop you off at your destination; at first, a human would need to be behind the wheel just in case, but that could easily change as the tech progresses and becomes more reliable. Steer toward the source link for a few more details about the thought process behind Google's efforts.
US Transportation agency backs public use of self-driving cars, urges states to adopt legislation
The key to road safety may lie in self-driving cars. That's the general conclusion of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's recently released policy report which urges states to draw up legislation that encourages testing of automated autos. Currently, only three states (i.e., California, Nevada and Florida) have enacted laws that permit companies like Google to operate these vehicles on public roadways. But the NHTSA hopes that with more state-backed adoption, advances in vehicle-to-vehicle communication and automatic braking can more quickly be refined, thus paving the way for industry standards and eventual commercial deployment. The agency, an arm of the US Department of Transportation, is also conducting its own research into V2V systems and driver guidelines for self-driving cars; the first phase of which is set to play out over a four-year period. For now, though, it still has a few additional hurdles to overcome, namely consumer perception (the NHTSA estimates self-driving cars could reduce crashes by 80 percent) and possible WiFi interference from the whitespace spectrum freed up by the FCC. Though the NHTSA's sights are clearly set on an automated vehicle future, it's yet to determine whether or not inclusion and use of that tech will be mandated.
Google's self-driving cars take TED attendees for a wild ride
Google gave folks a brief glimpse at its super secret self-driving cars last fall, but nothing like what it's just showed off at the TED conference that's happening this week in Long Beach, California. The company is not only actually letting attendees inside the autonomous car for a first-hand demonstration, but it's intentionally stepped things up to an "aggressive" level to show just how capable the car really is -- we're talking squealing tires and really tight cornering (all on a closed course, naturally). Head on past the break for a view from both inside and outside of the car courtesy of Search Engine Land.
